A couple of months ago on a Sunday afternoon, my sister Wendy called to tell me that our dad had been rushed to the hospital. He’d recently had heart surgery and was now having trouble breathing. My dad’s health had been deteriorating for years, thanks to a pack-a-day smoking habit he had no intention of breaking.
Dalton and I immediately drove to Douglasville, which is about a half-hour west of Atlanta. I was a nervous wreck. When we walked into the waiting room, my entire extended family was there. They were all crying. I saw my sister walking towards me. I could tell by the look on her face that my dad had just died. My knees buckled and Dalton caught me right before I hit the ground. I buried my face in his chest to muffle my scream.
My sisters and I went into my dad’s hospital room. I looked at him lying there in the bed. My mother was standing next to him, holding his hand. I ran and hugged her and cried so hard I couldn’t breathe. She told me it was just his time to go and that he was no longer in any pain. My mother was the strongest person I knew, and even now, after just losing the love of her life, she was determined to be strong for her three girls. I leaned down and kissed him on the forehead. I told him I loved him. In one week, it would be my thirtieth birthday. And my dad wouldn’t be there.
I was still in shock as we all walked out of the hospital. Dalton turned to me. “So like, what do we have to do here?" he said coldly. "I’ve gotta get back to work tomorrow.”
I let go of his hand, which up until that point, had been the only thing keeping me steady on my feet. I started to walk towards my mom, who was a few steps in front of me with my sisters. I kept thinking if I could just make it to her, if I could just grab her hand, I would never look back at Dalton again. He grabbed me by the arm.
“I’m sorry,” he said, pulling me back to him. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
I wanted to tell him to fuck off right then and there, but I was emotionally gutted. I didn’t have the strength to go through another breakup with Dalton while also trying to deal with the death of my father.
Funeral arrangements were made for Thursday. Dalton worked as an IT consultant and traveled extensively. His current assignment was in Miami. I told him to just fly out on Monday as usual and come back Thursday for the funeral. I had taken the week off and was surrounded by friends and family, including Josh.
Dalton was late for the funeral, of course. He blamed it on Atlanta traffic. My entire family would have preferred that he not even show up. They weren’t fans. Especially my father, who thought Dalton was “the most arrogant son-of-a-bitch I’ve ever met in my life.”
I should have left him a long time ago, but I loved him. More than anything in the world. I’d loved him since the first time I laid eyes on him. I was majoring in English and minoring in Theatre at Georgia Tech. I’d been cast as Jill in a local production of Equus. Dalton was a friend of the director who had recruited him to play the part of Nugget - the Stallion horse. The horses had no lines in the play, but they were an integral part of the story. The person playing Nugget had to be physically imposing and incredibly sexy. Dalton fit the bill on both accounts.
The first day of rehearsal, the entire cast was gathering on the stage for a read-thru. I took a seat at the table, facing out into the audience. The doors in the back of the auditorium opened up and this huge hunk of a man came walking down the aisle. I remember thinking that he looked like some kind of superhero. He jumped up on the stage and we immediately made eye-contact.
He was the tallest, most beautiful man I had ever seen. Six-foot-four with broad shoulders and long dark curly hair. He was a cross between Michael Hutchence of the band INXS and the lead character from that TV show “Renegade,” which was quite popular at the time.
He walked around the table and sat down right next to me. Then he scooted his chair even closer. The smell of him was intoxicating. He was wearing Calvin Klein Eternity for Men.
“Hi! I’m Dalton.”
He had green eyes that were almost as light as mine.
“Sammy,” I smiled.
After the read-thru, the cast went out for drinks in Buckhead. Dalton never left my side, chatting me up the entire night. I learned he was ten years older than me and graduated Georgia Tech with a degree in computer science. He also had a black belt in karate and worked part-time as a bouncer at a couple of bars in Atlanta. He asked me if I wanted to go see Bram Stoker’s Dracula the following night. Then he walked me to my car and kissed me. We were together ever since.
Dalton was my first true love. In the beginning, things were perfect. He was the smartest person I’d ever met and everything I thought a man should be at that stage of my life. The ultimate alpha male - protective, encouraging, and genuinely concerned about my well-being. I would soon find out that he was possessive, manipulating, and cared only about himself.
But he did love me. And he had no trouble telling me. He told everyone, especially when he was drunk. Our sex life had become the talk-of-the-town, especially on guys’ nights out. That’s one of the main reasons I stayed with him. The sex. It was addictive. For years we repeated a viciously
